A27004:930
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.
London: printed by R. White for Fran. Titon, 1667
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 25. Thus sin doth both as a Natural and as a Moral Meritorious cause bring on dissatisfaction, grief, vexation, desertion by God, and privation of felicity and peace.
§. 26. For as long as a sinner is impenitent and unsanctified, (that is, loveth not God as God) nor is recovered from his carnal mind and sin, it is both morally and naturally impossible that he should be blessed or enjoy God.
For, as it is only God that efficiently can make happy, because nothing worketh but by him;1 and so sin meritoriously undoeth the sinner, by making him unfit for favour, and making him an object of displicence and justice; so it is only God that finally can make happy, all things being but Means to him, and unfit of themselves to give Rest to the inquisitive seeking mind. And God is enjoyed only by Love, and the sense of His Love and Goodness: therefore the soul that loveth not God, and is not suited to the delightful fruition of him, can no more enjoy him, than a blind man can enjoy the light, or an ox can feast with a man.
- 1Nihil est miserius quàm animus hominis conscius, &c. Plaut. Jam aderit tempus, cum se etiam ipse oderit. Plaut. Bac.